Zelph, the White Lamanite, and Other Oddities

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence

Our host is dr. James white director of Alpha Omega ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now. It's 602 973 460 to or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 877 7 5 3 3 3 4 1 And now with today's topic here is

James white And good morning. Welcome to the dividing line on a

Tuesday morning the 15th of January The first month of 2008 is already halfway over.

Can you believe that I can time goes goes very very quickly I have for 30 seconds this morning thought maybe possibly might be able to say something today, but Then the only person that can tell me when

I can say anything Disappeared and has not called me back and I can't get hold of him.

So oh Well We keep trying so who knows what when when that's gonna be that's just how it is

I was on issues at cetera yesterday, by the way, eight seven seven seven five three three Three four one is the phone number doing all these video blogs

You know people whine and complain That we don't turn my blog into an internet ignorance aggregator

Where everybody gets to hide behind their keyboards and make nasty comments and waste my time

With irrelevant commentary and facile refutation and I Have often pointed out

There are a few people who post on the internet Who are more easily accessible?

Electronically than I am. I just don't think I have any Compulsion whatsoever any reason whatsoever to take

The website that we maintain well that we provide for and We'll soon maintain a real nice one someday

In the yeah, I I predict before my birthday that we're gonna have that We're gonna have a thing up, you know,

I kept you know, I keep hearing yeah, bye birthday Bye Christmas. Bye New Year's by this bed and Bubba Bubba and it's just like it's now the halfway through January and here

We said in fact Stephen D came and showed you see Stephen Yeah, this this is getting contagious because it's not just the website.

This is happening now. It's the big announcement Oh, yeah, I tell you but and I don't know either one

Maybe we should tell them the truth about the big announcement, which is what? The big announcement is the website will be changed by summer.

Yeah, we can't make the big announcement I've been hunting voraciously on eBay for a kazoo In order to Until we get the kazoo

There are dozens of kazoos on eBay. Have you ever keep getting out bid? I mean, they're in demand, you know

Must be what it's about Nasty, I'm totally lost. Oh, yes a website. Yes, we

I don't see any reason why yeah You almost almost got me sidetracked there from pointing out that it's now halfway through January and we still don't have a new website

Did you see Stephen D came in the channel the guy who who originally designed the template we've had now for eight years and Let's let's give credit where credit's due.

I don't know if it's actually credit, but he designed the the Pics GIFs and stuff like that.

I actually put the template together. Okay he designed he designed the look and you put it all together and That was so long ago now that We're talking we're getting we're moving toward the decade thing here, you know

The joke used to be that That we're so we're so old we become retro and which is the new cool

So, you know, we really wanted to go retro we'd go back to 1996 but a lot of folks may not realize this we've been on the web since November of 1996 really is when we went on the web and we met 387 tech.

No, no, no. No, that was 1994 95 I do

I still remember the URL. It was a page. So it was black animated

GIFs and swirly stuff When we when when my old roommate first designed the original

Website it had this giant page counter at the bottom in black background green letters and Every single page had a

MIDI file that play. Oh, yeah funky little music. Yeah Yeah, things have changed

Hey, you know if you really want to put it in perspective, it's still very modern

But You know when you have to when you have to compare it to net 3 to 7 dot Texas dotnet to make it modern

That's pretty sad. That's all I can say. But anyway Back to the point

I was making and that is I don't have any desire to turn my website into a means for all of These nasty people from whatever religion they are a part of To post their nasty grams about me.

They've there's plenty of space in the internet to Kind of thing and so I've been putting up these video blogs and you would think

That the easiest way to respond would be to pick up a phone and dial eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

I certainly make myself available in that way, but it's amazing The vast difference between folks who will invest tremendous amount of time in writing

Something and putting it on the web and those who will actually have to interact with me

I think it's a good filter, you know, it sort of separates what's meaningful from what isn't and that doesn't mean every calls meaningful

We've had a few that we could have skipped but That generally is I think a good direction to go

So if you have some comments positive or negative on the video blogs that I began putting up Just recently

You will Have an opportunity eight seven seven seven five three three three four one

I was on issues etc yesterday and Say question was asked that I I find rather interesting to deal with and we haven't talked about this in a while so I thought

I would do so and That is I was asked about the changes that have been made in the introduction

To the Book of Mormon by the Mormon Church of late and if you're not familiar with this

It's not a it's not a major change in the sense of total rewrite or anything like that But generally when

Mormonism makes a big change they do it in a small way. For example back after 1978

The next edition of the Book of Mormon that came out The Book of Mormon had talked about the

Nephites or the Lamanites and the Nephites and Lamanites for those of you who've not read the Book of Mormon are allegedly the two major a group of offspring of Nephi and Laman they came over from Jerusalem and the

Indians are their descendants and so on so forth and The Nephites were the mainly godly people the

Lamanites were the ungodly people So God cursed the Lamanites with a dark skin as a sign of their their evil and There's a promise in the

Book of Mormon that if they would repent and would follow after Christ That over time they would become a white and delights some people

Well after the priesthood was given to blacks the next edition of the Book of Mormon came that comes out says that they would be a pure and delights some people and Of course you'd go back and you could find where like people like Spencer W Kimball had made reference to this text and had gone

To Indian reservations that had come back and report about how the converts you could even you could tell who the converts children were

Because they're becoming white and delights them. They were lighter than the other kids

Is that oh is that politically incorrect, oh goodness, this is back in the 40s and 50s

Oh where it wasn't nearly as politically incorrect as now. So anyway Keeping all that in mind

It it is very clear to me that Joseph Smith believed that the

Book of Mormon story took place all across North America It certainly took place in upstate

New York because there is a big old honking battle At the hill Kimora and it basically is the final battle and that's where Moroni buries the golden plates and the whole story is wrapped up in 84 21 and New York is a long way from Central America wouldn't want to have to walk that one and so today

Mormonism is a little embarrassed by the Book of Mormon on many on many grounds and let's face.

It's badly written book It's very poorly written. It is when you read the 1830 edition, it's it's really poorly written and The the viewpoint that it presents the ancient inhabitants this hemisphere just isn't anything like What we know the ancient habitants this hemisphere was one of the major differences between the

Bible the Book of Mormon when the Bible describes the ancient inhabitants of Israel lo and behold we you know dig up all sorts of evidence of The fact that that's exactly where they were

So anyway It seems like the Mormon Church is is really trying to find a way to defend itself

In this day and it's it's very difficult for them to do The Book of Abraham has been you know, just a massive failure for them

The defenses that have been offered by certain people in Mormonism the Book of Abraham are simply laughable

They they're they're so stretched the the credulity level that it's it's difficult to even begin to interact with them with a straight face but then you had the discussion of DNA coming out and The reality that the

Indians are not Jews Okay they you you do not see chief chief

Finkelstein in on the reservations anywhere and It Seems so obvious, but you know, that's literally what

Joseph Smith thought is that they were the descendants of Jews and They're not so they're mongoloid and you can tell that I mean you you could sort of look at him

You look at the American Indian you look at the Eskimo You look at folks in Asia and you go.

Hey, that's a family resemblance there, you know I mean sort of obvious but DNA comes along and says, yep.

Yep. Yep. That's that. Mm -hmm. That's where they came from and Obviously those questions have been asked of of The Mormon Church and so I think we're seeing

I've said the only thing I can see the church doing eventually the Mormon Church doing eventually is

Turning the Book of Mormon into a parable I mean look at look at what they had to do with the book of Abraham they had to come up with ideas like these words were meant to Trigger these ancient memories in Joseph Smith's mind and And that's where the book of Abraham really came from was these primeval thoughts, you know stuff like this

And that's not what Joseph Smith said, but hey, you know, we now know that he didn't get a single word right in the book of Abraham, so You got to come up with something and I've often said that about the only direction the

Mormon Church has to go is to to turn the Book of Mormon from being What Joseph Smith said it was and and that was a work of history

Written in this hemisphere by the ancient inhabitants this hemisphere into some sort of a parable and You know some sort of you know, it does contain the great dream and stuff like that and so why not just make the whole thing a dream and That way you can you know, try to find a way around these things now.

I realize That everybody around Manti, Utah would would have a complete meltdown if anything like that were to happen, obviously

But I just don't see any direction other direction. They can go the the Book of Mormon just isn't true It's not a historical document.

It doesn't have any any connection to to history. It didn't happen it's a work of fiction a bad work of fiction at that and so What are they gonna do?

So The DNA stuff comes out and I think we're starting to see

The church leadership reacting and what I mean by that is like I said the change of white to pure Not a big change in the sense of you know

It didn't rewrite a whole chapter, but it signaled a big change in leadership. So what's the change in the in?

the introduction to the Book of Mormon well here's what it used to say after thousands of years all were destroyed except the

Lamanites and They are the ancestors of the American Indians Now it says after thousands of years all were destroyed except the

Lamanites and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians one little word but all the

Vista of apologetic defense that is opened by the insertion of one

Little word because you see when you say they are among the ancestors

You see what you can do. And this is this seems to be the direction they're going a number of years ago one of the

BYU scholars suggested that the entire Book of Mormon story took place in only a 40 square mile area not all of North America and certainly not in upstate,

New York but it took place and maybe a 40 square mile area in the area of Mesoamerica someplace and the idea the

Probability is of ever stumbling across This tiny little area would be remotely small so that way you can just say oh, hey

There were all these other, you know the regular American Indians are out there and we can we can go with what the world says about them and they didn't have horses and chariots and and Steel swords is like that.

There was just this one little area that was just super advanced and Somehow only they had horses.

I'm not sure. I guess the horses just never got away they had very good carousel and could never get away and nobody else could and Evidently none of these other cultures knew anything about them.

They're in this, you know It's sort of like one of those secret Valley things that no one ever goes in and you know lost world or something

I don't know and so You have this kind of stuff going on.

And so what they're saying now is is if that's the case Then if they're they were among the ancestors the

American Indians then they're just a small little smidgen and they wouldn't show up in the DNA map because there's such a small element of The ancestry of the

American Indians so we can accept the documented fact the American Indian Is not

Semitic but mongoloid in in extraction and we can now say oh, yes, that's right but we still have this one small group and In essence, no one knows what happened to them or anything else and somehow their record was written on golden plates and somehow

Got transported somehow from Central America all the way to the hill

Camorra where somehow Joseph Smith a treasure seeker somehow managed to locate them in 1827 or so and somehow that's how it all worked and But what

I want to read I was trying to find I was trying to bring up I just reinstalled the gospel link program in the thing.

I can't find it in the Start menu Gone, you got too many programs in your computer when you're sitting there going.

Okay, is it an accessory? Application nope. Nope. It's fine utilities someplace, you know, it ended up in some sub directories

I don't know where it went. But so I couldn't find it. So I just googled I googled

Zelf the white Lamanite. Yes Zelf the white Lamanite and I came across an article right off the top by none other than one of our favorite people in all the world

Sandra Tanner and when you find Sandra Tanner wrote it it she's done a good job and It was contained the exact reference that I knew

I was gonna need and I wanted to read to you It's a story this and a lot of stories like this if you sit down with a documentary history the church sometime six volume set

It's it is quite the interesting read. There's no no tways about I've not met very many Mormons who have actually read the documentary history

The church. I certainly haven't read all of it. It's rather boring at times, but some very fascinating stuff you can dig out and Here's one of the stories while Zion's camp was marching on the way to Jackson County, Missouri near the bank of the

Illinois River which is in Illinois Which just want to make sure you understand the

Illinois River is not in Colombia, okay This is we're not talking in Central and America here

We're talking about Illinois because to my knowledge Joseph Smith never went to Central America They came to a mound contain the skeleton of a man now burial mounds were very common back in the day before expansion westward by the the white settler and Indians would bury their dead in mounds and this caused all sorts of speculations when you come across an area there a bunch of burial mounds and Since anthropology at the time was in its infancy

That this is why people thought well these are lost ten tribes of Israel and all sorts of stuff like this so Here is the citation from LDS sources the brethren procured a shovel and a hoe and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot

Discover the skeleton of a man almost entire and between his ribs the stone point of a

Lamanite ish arrow remember they referred the American Indians as Lamanites a Lamanite ish arrow which evidently produced his death

Elder burr Riggs retained the arrow the contemplation of the scenery around us produced peculiar sensations in our bosoms and Subsequently the visions of the past being open to my understanding by the spirit of the

Almighty I discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white

Lamanite a large thickset man and a man of God His name was

Zelf He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Anandagos who was known from the hill

Kimora or Eastern Sea to the Rocky Mountains The curse was taken from Zelf or at least in part one of his thigh bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling

While in battle years before his death he was killed in battle by the arrow found among his ribs

During the last great struggle of the Lamanites and the Nephites end quote

That's Joseph Smith. I One of the first things that I was fascinated to discover upon reading this was that Gil Grissom was a

Mormon I did not know this and he looks so young on CSI I'm sorry, but you know

His leg was broken by a sling and and and all this you know

The spirit told me all this stuff and I'm just like oh my goodness. Okay, right.

All right, so The point is twofold. First of all, you're in Illinois and you've got a white

Lamanite That means the Lamanites are not stuck in a 40 square mile area in Central America I know the farms wants to limit them to that area

But it's just it doesn't work. It's not not not gonna not gonna function for us and then notice this prophet

And this warrior he's a warrior chieftain under the great prophet Anandagos who was known from where hill

Kimora That's upstate New York to the Eastern Sea or Eastern Sea to the Rocky Mountains.

That's America kids that's from the Eastern Sea the Rocky Mountains That's where his fame was that's mean that's means and Joseph Smith's understanding.

That's where the Book of Mormon story took place I mean if you're gonna It's not like this guy lived 5 ,000 years ago and we're trying to piece together what he may have thought about his writings

This wasn't that long ago and he's left us all sorts of documentation as to what he thought these things were

There's other evidence that Sandra Tanner mentions here Elder Heber C Kimball also mentioned

Zelf He says while on our way We felt anxious to know who the person was who had been killed by that arrow by the way if this guy was from like Fort This would have been what?

1 ,400 years later his skeleton is not one foot down folks.

Hello Anyway It was made known to Joseph that he had been an officer who fell in battle in the last destruction among the

Lamanites and his Name was Zelf This caused us to rejoice much to think that God was so mindful of us as to show these things to his servant

Brother Joseph had inquired the Lord and it was made known in a vision. So I mean this is even this is claimed to be revelation from God about Zelf the white

Lamanite And then interestingly enough we have another from the Travels of the

Kirtland camp listen to this says the camp passed through Huntsville and Randolph County, Missouri which has been appointed as one of the stakes of Zion and is the ancient site of the city of Manti and Pitched tents at Dark Creek salt licks 17 miles

It was reported the camp that 110 men had volunteered from Randolph and had gone too far west to settle difficulties

The point is that here in Missouri is the ancient site of the city of Manti Samuel D.

Taylor likewise made reference to September 25th 1838 would pass through Huntsville County seat of Randolph County population 450 and three miles further.

We bought 32 bushels of corn off one of the brethren who resides in this place There are several of brethren roundabout here and this is the ancient site of the city of Manti which is spoken of in the

Book of Mormon and This is appointed one of the stakes of Zion and is Randolph County, Missouri three miles west of the county seat

So what was the belief of early Mormons on this subject? That the

Book of Mormon was one little teeny tiny spot. We'll never find in Mesoamerica new These burial mounds were the burial mounds created by the

Nephites and the Lamanites Zelf the white Lamanite was there There's no indication that his his poor skeleton had been transported from Mesoamerica to,

Illinois Just simply to give Joseph Smith a reason to talk about him or anything else what's obvious is probably this poor

Indian they dug up had died, you know within two or three years earlier and they they dug him up and turned him into Zelf the white

Lamanite and So this saga goes on as to how

Mormonism Can withstand its journey outside of the safe warm confines of Utah in the modern era the reason that Mormonism has survived as long as it has

Was because for most of its history. It was a regional religion in an area that just simply was not exposed to a lot of critical thinking and examination of its claims and When that critical thinking examination has come to the fore we see

Mormonism's attempt to constantly restrict the target you get to shoot at We're gonna make our target smaller and smaller and I'm telling you the

Mormonism that I encountered when I first started studying Mormonism and The people that I talked to and the leaders and the missionaries and the regular old

Mormons out in Mesa, Arizona in the 1980s Are a dying breed

They are being replaced by a much less confident must much less forthright

Mormonism And that's why its numbers are flat. That's why it's its growth is natural growth.

Just the number of kids you're having you're losing as many people as you're birthing into the thing and That's they know that but they don't know what to do about it.

And that's what we're seeing taking place these days 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number and Alan's online and you can get online as well

Alan has questions on Islam that we'll be glad to take after we take our break today And we'd be happy to line up other callers as well on the subject of Islam Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses some of you saw the

Video I just post someone called it a vlog. I like that V log video log vlog instead of a blog.

It's a vlog I like that. That's that's not bad a V log or whatever you want to call it or vid blog or you know, who cares?

It's a nice way of communicating something and You know, the only complaint people have is you can't cut and paste and use it yourself

You can embed it but it's not quite the same thing But it is very enjoyable for me to do and Hopefully especially as my time gets more and more scarce in the future as I work in the area of the

Islamic doctoral studies That kind of format will still allow me to have communication with folks without taking quite as much time to do it

So I just put one up on a very kind little note. Actually, obviously

I post these On my on my YouTube page. And so if you're if you go to the

YouTube page, you'll always see the most current thing up but Then I post it on the blog, but I don't post it right at the same time.

So for most folks The easiest way is just to wait till it appears on the blog And watch it then but the people who just can't

Handle the idea that there's something you haven't seen yet They can go to my

YouTube page and you'll see everything that's that's currently available Right now for example,

I have one that's scheduled to appear. I Think Thursday morning right at midnight or something like that But it's already on the

YouTube page. So some people who just you know are sort of Internet oriented might want to do it that way.

Otherwise, just don't worry about it. Wait till it appears in the blog and We can go that way But there's currently one up about a nice kind letter that was sent to me instructing me to repent of my non

King James only ism and It was sent to the church. And so I took the time to look at least one of the texts

That was cited as an illustration of how bad modern perversions are and that was

Colossians 114 explained the textual critical issues the fact that the earliest Greek manuscript containing the reading in the

King James from the 9th century and Where it came from and so on so forth and so that's that's on the the vlog

Even as we speak, so if you have a questions about that kind of stuff eight seven seven seven five three three three four

One I wanted it nice and slowly Because when you get used to a number you can say way too fast and then people when they actually want to call don't remember

So anyways, we're gonna take our take our break and be back with Alan and your calls right after this

Hello everyone. This is Rich Pierce In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program

The need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater I am convinced that a great many go to church every

Sunday yet. They have never been confronted with their sin Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner making no excuses

Man is sinful and God is holy That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior?

We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well

Support Alpha Omega Ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

Thank you The criminal mishandling of God's Word may be

James White's most provocative book yet White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned

Based firmly upon the bedrock of Scripture one crime after another is laid bare for all to see

The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day?

The charges are as follows Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain pandering to pluralism cowardice under fire felonious eisegesis entertainment without a license and Cross -dressing ignoring

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women is a public crime occurring in your town Get pulpit crimes in the bookstore at a omen org

Omega Ministries is pleased to introduce the

Christmas morning CD by Todd Lindstrom Passion and peace are what sets Todd's music apart from others

These 12 instrumental favorites will bless and inspire you as you entertain guests and spend

Christmas morning with your family You can find this beautiful music that celebrates the birth of our

Lord in the bookstore at a omen org Well, there you go folks we want to get your

Christmas shopping started early so January 15th I Spot coming in there and I'm like, how do you stop that?

Okay, skip over it inevitability Agent Smith was right behind rich.

That's the sound of inevitability You can't stop the

Christmas commercial it's gonna play and everybody's gonna know who did it I love it.

Mm -hmm. Great stuff. Well, I would like to Be able to pop Alan up, but I don't know what's going on with this thing.

I Need a new tablet. I use a little tablet PC here to to do the phones and It's decided that it's gonna work for like about 25 minutes and then it's just gonna stop working

At all at that point and it loses connection to the Internet out of its, you know

I'm sort of feeling here. It's a little warm, but it's not any warmer than you expect it to be So it's of course is rather cool in this office right now

Anyways, so once the summer comes really be in trouble. But anyways, I lost I lost my phone interface so hopefully riches is working and We can hopefully have an opportunity to talk with with Alan.

So if you could bring him up Alan you there Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. I can hear you just fine

Excellent, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Got a couple questions I'm trying to get more familiar with Islam.

You got a couple questions and I'll I go to the source You've been studying it lately and the first question

It's really been nagging me for a long time is a lot of times you hear this farm referred to as the religion of peace

What the heck does that mean? Well the religion of peace Would come from the assertion that in essence the term

Salaam Are you familiar with the Hebrew term Shalom? Yeah, okay

Arabic is a Semitic language just as Hebrew they share many of the same roots together

And so in the West the assertion that is made is that Islam you see the

S the L and the M there Same root means peace and so Islam is the religion of peace the problem is long before 9 -eleven and the resurgence that a lot of people really trace back to the

Situation in Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini and the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism When I was in seminary and I took church history

When Islam was discussed I was told and taught and I think pretty much everybody else was too that Islam means submission and a

Muslim If you see Muslim you see SLM and whenever you see a

MU at the beginning of an Arabic word It's a participial form and so it's one who does whatever that root refers to so a

Muslim is one is who it was in subjection to Submission to Allah and Islam is refers to all of those together who are in Submission to in subjection to Allah and that I was told

That and I think this is remains true linguistically That's the

I'd any idea of peace That is in the Arabic use these words comes from the idea of a person being submitted to Allah and therefore at peace with him

But of course it is a submission that is brought about by force It would be the the peace that would exist when the conquering general or King Has his foot on the neck of the vanquished foe.

That is the peace that comes from submission To the higher authority.

So if you want to call Islam a religion of peace that is the only way in which that peace is brought about all you have to do is turn to surah 9 and I just I didn't have to comment on go get almost any

English translation of the Quran there are some English translations that spin things more than others. In fact,

I just I was going to read from a English translation I picked up yesterday at the bookstore

John Meadows Rodwell's translation it's sort of the TN IV of Quranic translations and read read any of them read surah 9 any of them and tell me what it says and It's one of the last of the surahs that Muhammad writes and therefore it is not abrogated by anything else.

The Prophet puts forth and You read in there. That's the primary source of the jihad passages the fighting of those

Infidels until they feel themselves submitted and pay the jizya and etc, etc

So if they submit to their God they have peace with their God, but don't we have peace with our God through Jesus?

Well Well, yeah, I mean but but there's a vast difference between the mechanism by which that peace is brought about and this this is the real fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam is that while the the final goal in essence of both religions is a

Situation where God rules over his creation. It is the mechanism

That God uses to bring about that kingdom that is so vastly different I've said many many times

Theology matters and here's another place where you see how theology matters since Islam does not have a meaningful doctrine of sin and the depravity of man and really any any meaningful doctrine of how

God can interact in a meaningful and personal fashion with his

His creation then the means by which peace is brought about is

External it is it is the establishment of this this Islamic pan world state that brings about sharia law and it is the establishment of sharia that is the symbol of Islamic supremacy and the establishment of the kingdom of God.

How does that happen in Christianity? We have a law of God as well. And Even though there are many antinomian

Evangelicals today the description of the New Covenant in Hebrews chapter 8

Says that God's law is written upon our hearts. It is internalized it is a part of the change that takes place by the

Spirit of God and a Person who is submitted through Jesus Christ to God as a person who has been changed not just externally

You can't bring about this submission externally it is it requires the work of the Spirit of God and regeneration and the the creation of a new heart and so the kingdom of God is established first by the reign of Christ within the heart of the individual and only in the eschatological

Establishment of the kingdom of God does that then become something much larger?

But it's from the inside out not the outside in and it's not established by an ak -47 or a sword or whatever other

External mechanism might be in the establishment of a external law system The reason that God's law is something that delights the heart of the individual is because of regeneration because an internal change

Not because of some sort of external man -made governmental establishment of Sharia or something like that Well, you can understand my confusion, you know after witnessing 9 -11 on television and you know

Terrorism in the name of Allah around the world almost every day and then I'm supposed to think of Islam as a religion of peace

Maybe not peace with fellow man, but maybe peace with their God But you know, you can understand oh certainly and you know when you listen to The the

Western representatives of Islam and you listen to how they present their perspectives

Inevitably there is going to be confusion on the part of a Western observer Because of the differences of what

Islam looks like when it is the minority which it most certainly is here in the

United States and when it is the majority and the the fact that you can go online pretty much each and every day and You can find

Transcriptions of Arabic programming where you hear the most outrageous things being said by imams in Islamic countries and then contrast that with the contradiction of those statements and Western countries is one of the reasons why there is such confusion on this particular subject is because what

Islam says when it's the minority is Different from what Islam says when it is the majority and that's where the source of confusion comes from for for individuals

Yes, sir Is there a difference between? Mainstream Muslims and radical

Muslim excellent question Go ahead and should it and do

I need to fear all Muslims or just the ones that pull themselves up. I Understand I understand

I Had the opportunity the privilege really of Doing some recording for Coral Ridge Ministries last summer down in Fort Lauderdale and they played

Portions anyways of that interview on on the Coral Ridge hour over the course of a month and One of those began with an interview with Ravi Zacharias and Ravi was asked basically the same question about Radical Islam and his response was a very very good response his response in essence was

I'm not sure that I know what the difference is between A so -called radical

Islam and mainstream Islam and I fully understand what he's saying there because the fact that when you listen to an

Osama bin Laden who is considered to be the radical of all radicals and you listen to what his fundamental theological foundation is and then

Few weeks ago. I was playing here on the program the lectures on the concept of shirk the the unforgivable sin of idolatry in Islam by a

Salafi scholar by the name of Abu Amr Yasir Qadhi In fact,

I have his book right here in my hand and as Yasir Qadhi is discussing the nature of shirk

He mentions that someone who is a mushrik that is a person who commits shirk which would include those who?

Quote -unquote associate with Allah Jesus as the Son of God in other words Christians that when a state of jihad

Exists the life of the mushrik and the property of the mushrik is forfeited

That is when jihad exists the Muslim can kill the mushrik and take the mushrik's possessions

And he says but of course since there is no caliph That is a worldwide leader of the entire

Islamic community who speaks for them Then a true jihad cannot be proclaimed.

So in other words, here's Yasir Qadhi Western scholar Well Western since he was he was born here of Pakistani parents

Would not be considered by the media or other people as a quote -unquote radical and yet What is the difference between himself and the people we do call radicals?

It's a theological difference It says well, there's not a a caliph who can give us the command to go that the jihad exists

Well, what if one arises all of a sudden all those moderates become radicals? And so what is the dividing line between these folks?

That really is a very fuzzy area and That's one of the major issues for governmental authorities is to give consideration to the ease with which allegedly moderate

Muslims Can become radicalized and so, you know, you did say something else that's interesting and that is should

I fear all Muslims? No, I don't think we should fear Muslims at all I I think that we should recognize that God is in control of our lives and that while we take appropriate measures to safeguard

Property and family and so on and so forth against violent men The idea of fearing an entire religious group

I think is something that we need to avoid We need to as Christians recognize that the greatest weapon against terrorism is the gospel that changes terrorists into followers of Christ And so we should be bold in the proclamation of that gospel bold in the defense of that gospel

That is the only thing that can truly bring healing to lands like Iraq That is the only thing that can truly bring change to lands like Iran is to change the hearts of people

All the propaganda in the world isn't gonna be able to do that. We possess the one thing that can change that moderate

Muslim before he's radicalized into a person wearing a bomb vest can change that person into a person who now loves the one true

God as he's revealed himself in father son and Holy Spirit and Recognizes his own sin the gospel the cross and Is a follower of Christ and and hence has absolutely no basis or grounds for wrapping explosives about his body

Because that is not how the kingdom of God is promoted Well, I mean you've been really generous with your time

I've got another Muslim question that can wait for another day All right. Well, let's do it real quick and then we'll go to Frank's call.

All right One thing has bothered me I love President Bush But he said something along a while back

It got him in trouble when he said the Christians and the Muslims worship the same God, right?

Yeah well This this raises the issue that really does bother a lot of people and and that is the fact that you have a a single word

Let's get the linguistic stuff out of the way and then let's talk about what really matters there is one word used by people who speak

Arabic for God and it's Allah and Christians have used a law of God for a very very long time and that does not mean we're worshiping the same

God in the same way Mormons for example refer to God the

Father Well, that's not my God the Father and I make a clear distinction Between what the

Mormon believes on that and yet we're still using the English word God And so the people who are all up all upset about so well, we shouldn't use the word

Allah even the Muslims in Indonesia I mentioned in the last program the Muslims in Indonesia. It looks like we lost we lost our caller there

But hopefully he'll be listening on the webcast the Muslims in Indonesia Are trying to prohibit

Christians from using the term Allah because they're trying to associate it solely with the God of Islam Allah means

God and The Hebrews use the term L other religions use the term

L of God as well They did not see that as a as a reason to not use that terminology the what's important is what you mean by what you say and if you cannot express what you mean by what you say if you

Cannot contrast what you mean by what you say from what people around you are saying. That's probably your problem

It's not the words problem So I have no problem with the word Allah being used by Arabic Christians, for example in regards to God But clearly we do not worship the same

God they reject God's self -manifestation as Father Son and Holy Spirit They have a completely different concept of God's relationship to the world his purposes in this world, etc

Etc to say that we worship the same God is to fall into the very trap that Vatican to fell into Which spoke of us adoring the one true

God and we simply do not so I believe that President Bush was misled at that point and is an error on a theological issue

Thankfully, we do not elect presidents to be a theologian -in -chief That's that's a good thing.

Let's and I have my my interface back up here rich So it only took a complete resetting of the system, but let's talk with Frank.

Hi Frank. How you doing? Doing all right let me first say that I Can't even begin to imagine what you're going to be going through in terms of trial and tribulations

Now that you're heading into the area of Islam You know just in light of all of the trials and tribulations you have to face among Catholics You know, that's pretty intense and no doubt

Muslims are going to be far worse. So, you know, my family and I have making I've made it a point to pray for you

Regularly. Well, I appreciate that Frank in fact, I would like to say to all the folks who have sent very kind and supportive emails since last

Thursday when I made that a public issue Thank them very much

I've not received any at least rich hasn't forwarded to me any negative emails and they've been very many positive emails

I just hope people remember that this this current flush of Supportiveness needs to last for a number of years because this is not something that you do overnight, so Anyway, but your your question has to do with something a little bit different than that It does but you know in light of the previous conversation.

It's there's some fundamental overlapping that's going on there So I'm actually very happy that you took the time to answer so many of his questions

Mm -hmm, the distinction between mainstream and radical Islam and the ambiguity of language that shared specifically with the word

Allah Mm -hmm. My my question has to do with Roman Catholicism and the the

Huge push at least it seems like a huge push to reinterpret so much of it

Mm -hmm, and I've been dialoguing a lot on the internet with you know Certain higher educated

Protestant, you know on their way to becoming Protestant academics, unfortunately, and they are

Very very nice to Rome which of course is not necessarily a bad thing But they're nice to Rome in the sense that they say things for instance

Like well, we need to allow Rome to interpret herself. We can't we can't look to you know anti -catholics such as yourself they'll say or we can't look to Catholic apologists good

Catholic apologists. That's just a popular movement. You know, that's on the lay level We need to look to Catholic academics and we need to let them interpret what

Catholicism means Well, you know Frank it's funny I'm not sure if I've shared with us before but I remember

I don't have many years ago It was now time as you get older You'll discover will go so much faster and eventually years seem like months and months seem like years

But I I forget what the context was, but I had written to Robertson Janice When I heard him make some statements this was before all the geocentrism

Jewish stuff that was that now marks the utilization of his name, but I had written to him about a statement that he had made

I remember what was it was when Pope John Paul II gave a homily where he really just tiptoed along the line of a

Almost a form of universalism. I mean it was really really broad inclusivism type

Perspective and I remember contrasting what John Paul II said with what the

Council of Florence had said in Regards to Jews and schismatics and things like that and his response was fascinating his response was

James Only the Roman Catholic Church can interpret her own history and Now he was doing that to in essence say look whatever

Rome says she once meant That's what Rome meant even if everybody living at the time understood differently and it was in essence an abandonment of the idea of that Rome's own dogmatic statements were given within a context and that it is valid and proper to go back to you know a

Cardinal Bellarmine or something like that and Utilize that kind of contextual information to provide a background and hence a clear understanding of any of Rome's dogmatics dogmatic pronouncements and It sounds a little bit like that can be used in either direction, but it really

Requires it's the same thing in essence that we're seeing in the culture in the United States saying that the

Constitution has no you know Context to its original meaning and that we can move it around and change it and in essence now we're being told

It's up to Rome now of course what you're running into is people who would say well

Roman academics not necessarily the Magisterium itself but that's you know, they don't

I don't think they even realize what they're saying when they have recourse to like Catholic academics because As you know the person that I was talking with and he brought this up to me

He didn't said in another conversation, you know, but how do we know when a

Catholic theologian is? Speaking officially for the church. I mean, you know, I'm just like, okay, so you

Even Catholic academics don't the Magisterium does not infallibly endorse any

Catholic academic or group of Catholic academics Right, right So if that's the view you're gonna have of Rome or any religion, then you're never going to be able to understand

You know who they are No and so much so much of apologetics today runs up against the the inherent skepticism that is a part of Western thinking today that you

Anyone who claims to have true and accurate knowledge of almost anything is looked at with a skeptical eye and that that massive shift in epistemology

Is reflected in the kind of conversations that you're having there are very few academics that are that are comfortable with saying this is absolutely right and this is absolutely wrong and that has come into the even the area of history and it's almost ironic that it that it comes into a discussion of even the definition of Roman Catholic theology because What's what's one of the main things that the

East has always criticized the West for is being far too word and document Oriented.

I mean for Eastern Orthodoxy. What's the rule of faith? It's the liturgy. It's the prayers It's it's what you do not what you write and they've always said the

West is way too forensic It's way too associated with literary documents and dogmas rationalism exactly and so here you've got a religion.

That's entire history Has been reduced down. I mean you've seen the code of canon law for good for crying out loud

Drop it on somebody's head you kill him, you know I mean, it's it's it's it's a deadly weapon and it's all these words and they had context

But now today it's sort of like it that all that no longer matters. It doesn't matter What's Pope X in his context meant and it doesn't matter if everybody in the world

Catholic Protestant and Eastern Orthodox knew? Exactly what he meant as long as it's outside of our personal experience.

It no longer matters Is it wrong to see a common common thread here between the liberals who are arguing this for the

Constitution the The people who are nice to Muslims saying the same thing.

Well, you know, you got to understand Islam what is Islam really is not they make all these distinction distinctions between the radicals and the mainstream and here in even in the

Jewish world is happening, you know, and I I Think about that.

Oh, that's all right. Do we really understand what the Jews meant? Did they really teach works righteousness? Let's see them.

Oh, yeah, and now and you know, that's three areas Yeah, we go over to Roman Catholicism. That's four areas where we have the same thing going on yeah, the

West is definitely suffering from a the epistemological backlash of post -modernism and a fundamental

Dislike of the idea of ever claiming that you actually know something is true and I can define it

There's no no question about that. But hey Frank, we're out of time. I appreciate your call today despite our having a few problems of the phone line there right at the end and thanks to the prayers and Appreciate the inputs and your calls as well today

Excellent questions we had from both of our callers and you know, we covered a wide range of stuff today.

We covered Mormonism and its history we covered Islam in its history. We talked about Roman Catholicism That's that's pretty wide variety of stuff that should give a little something to everybody to be thinking about hopefully useful

We will be back Thursday. I am NOT going to promise the big announcement for Thursday, but it's possibility

I'm not trying to string you along. We want it. We want to do it. We'll hopefully be able to do it We'll see you Thursday The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega ministries

If you'd like to contact us call us at 602 973 4602 or write us at PO box 37106

Phoenix, Arizona 85069 you can also find us on the world wide web at a omen org

That's a o m i n dot o RG where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks